


the six stages of falling in love

by donnatroy



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Love, little bit of angst but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnatroy/pseuds/donnatroy
Summary: He has never felt this kind of love.





	the six stages of falling in love

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off a poem i found on tumblr   
> http://mccoyhank.co.vu/post/162968173969/one-you-see-her-for-the-first-time-and-shell

**_i._ **

The first time he sees you, you’re talking with a few cadets, and he watches diligently. Jim smiles at the way you wave your hand wildly, touching your friends on their shoulders and laugh heartily. (He wishes he could hear it.) With a drink in your hand and a smile playing at your lips which quickly vanishes when you raise the glass to your lips and look down at your drink in disappointment. He doesn’t listen to Bones, he can’t as he watches you move towards the bar from his spot at a high table. Your head is high and weaving through the crowd of drunken cadets that celebrate the beginning of the short two-week break for the holidays and the end of the midterms for most.

You glance to him, locking eyes for just a moment, seeing the flash of blue and blond of the man staring at you and he seems familiar, but all cadets in passing look the same to you in the matching red uniforms. So, you move on, not willing to waste your time staring at a man when you could be doing more with your time, like getting blackout drunk and regretting it in the morning.

“Jim, you look like a fish outta water.”

He turns to face Leonard, lips pressed into an unamused smile. “You can be a real ass, you know that?”

“Says the man who’s been ignoring me because of some pretty thing across the bar caught your eye.”

Jim clicks his tongue, “What makes you think,” he cranes his neck, looking for you in the crowd, “I was staring at someone.”

When he finds that you’ve disappeared amongst the drunk cadets, he feels himself deflate, wanting to get another glance at you, if only for just another moment. But you’re gone, lost in the sea of red and rowdy dancers.

Leonard shrugs and brings the shot glass to his lips and throws his head back. The sound of the glass hitting the wood table brings Jim back with a startle, “I know your tells, Jim, you’re an open book.”

“I think,” he says, picking up the glass and finishes of his whiskey, feeling the slight burn that it leaves in its wake down the back of his throat, something that he desperately needs to ground him back down. “It’s time I go.”

“It’s only ten.”

“And I’m tired, Bones.”

It’s not quite a lie, because he is tired, he truly is. It’s been a very long year, it’s the first time he’s felt in his place, somewhere he is being challenged and his potential being realized by others instead of being brushed off.

When he goes to lie down that night, fingers interlocked and behind his head, all he can see is you, the moment when you held eye contact with him for just that split second, his mind running wild with the memory.

**_ii._ **

He doesn’t know why you’re so hesitant in your affections toward him, it’s not like there’s rules. Well, there are, but that doesn’t mean that he cares- he’s never really cared for rules, that’s just part of who he is. This is the U.S.S Enterprise, the best ship in all of Starfleet, and you don’t earn that title by following the rules.

You still scan the room, looking for anything, any sign of another person, even as he says that it’s okay, that the coast is clear. Nobody’s watching and nobody really cares. There’s more scandalous affairs aboard the Enterprise than you and him. But you follow the rules- most of them anyway, the important ones- and it’s hard for you to break one of the upmost rules- one that has been outdated and nearly tossed out the window of most starships. You’re still so careful even when there is no need for it.

Jim doesn’t mind.

He takes them as they come, welcoming each hesitant kiss and touch with a smile and open arms.

Try as hard as he may to convince you that everything is okay, you still need to look, waiting to be caught by someone. Some days, he’s sure that it’s not the crew that you’re looking for when he goes to hold your hand.

“I think I love you,” you whisper, taking his hand in yours, doing your usual glance around the room. The tension in your shoulders slowly melt away when you’re sure that it’s only you and him in the small recreation room, “You don’t have to say it back but, I think that I really love you.”

He watches you, drinks you in like you’re his entire world- you might as well be- and the smile that has left him in a state of euphoria so many times, makes its way to your lips, and dear God, he thinks that smile could light up the entire galaxy.

Jim has spent his fair share of hours, lying in bed and trying to really get a grip on what he feels for you. It’s something that he’s never experienced. Sure, he’s had girlfriends when he was younger, but he’s never felt this towards any of those girls. This is new. A new kind of love. He’s felt platonic and familial love but never romantic love. So maybe this could be the real thing.

He hopes it is. He wants it to be.

**_iii._ **

He shifts you in his arms and when he looks down at you and that’s when he realizes how small you look against him. He has hardly ever seen you so shaken, so broken and defeated while you grasp at his shirt, the fabric soaked with tears. Jim tries to comfort you, holding you as tightly as he can, murmuring sweet nothings and reassurances that everything is okay, that everything is fine.

Jim has admired you for so long for carrying this weight on your shoulders, always pushing him to open up to you and talk about everything, but you never doing the same when he tried to. If he was even lucky enough to get you talk to him, it was never as deep as he’d go with you. There was always something holding you back and he wonders if someone did this to you, to make you feel like you couldn’t talk about what you felt or if it was just you.

But that doesn’t matter right now, all he can focus on is you in his arms, not what someone might have done to you.

You still won’t tell him what has you so upset, or maybe you just can’t. He couldn’t get a word out of you and there’s no doubt that you would even be able to so in this state. He waits patiently, trying his hardest to get you to calm down. His fingers dig into the top of your arms, pulling you closer and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Starlight, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

He hopes that you will take those words to heart, but it’s a longshot, he knows that. You’re crying, and with how upset you are, it won’t be solved with a few words. Jim does his best, even if it might not be enough.

“But you won’t always. You died, you asshole! I saw you with- with a sheet over your head.”

He taps his fingers against your shoulder and looks down at you. He can’t quite look you in the eyes, maybe it’s the guilt. He’s the one that caused this, the red eyes and tear stained cheeks, labored breathing and shaking chest.

“Hey, baby,” he coos, pushing back the feeling of guilt, and brings his hands up to your face, cupping your cheeks and smiles at you, trying to reassure you, “I’m not gonna leave. I’ll always be here. I promise you that.”

You sit up and press your forehead to his, sniffling and trying to calm your breathing. Your hands cover his, hands shaking a bit over his own, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, James.”

**_iv._ **

There’s a two-week period for the crew to finally rest after a little over a year in space. Two weeks to rest while the ship is docked in Yorktown for minor repairs and restocking of supplies. It isn’t long in the big picture but for now, it will do. It will do just plenty.

Two weeks at peace, no interruptions, no meeting, no life or death situations, just rest. He usually goes stir-crazy when docked for more than a few days, the thrill of being out in space and discovering new planets calling to him, but being confined with you in the tiny, assigned living space keeps him still and comfortable.

Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine this; a relationship, steady and full of understanding and support. You knew of his ambition and his yearning to lead this life. “Adventure flows through you, James Tiberius Kirk, it’s written in your DNA,” you’d said to him, your head on his chest and fingers dancing along his skin, each touch igniting flames beneath his skin, the heat following the pads of your fingers, “I’ll be with you, no matter what.”

You trace the veins on his arms, from the inside of his elbow down to the tips of his fingers and back up. And when he watched you, something settled in the pit of his stomach that made him smile. Contentedness is something of a luxury in his job and it’s an odd feeling to experience.

He traces over the path that you had painted just the other night on his arm, wishing nothing more than for you to have stayed this last night with him instead of in your own room. You claimed you wouldn’t get any sleep if you stayed with him, giggling like mad when he wrapped his arms around your waist, peppering soft kisses along the column of your neck and up to your temple.

And you were right, pulling away with a smile and grabbing hold of his hands, he would have kept you up all night.

His memories of you is more than enough for him. He’ll see you in the morning; he can wait just a little longer.

**_v._ **

There’s a lull in between shifts, where it seems like there’s no one on the Enterprise at all. People are either in their cabins, exhausted from their shifts, or they’re already at their stations. That lull, it doesn’t last long, but you revel in that small amount of time, that quick five minutes alone with him that isn’t in an examination room or his quarters.

You’ve become bolder, having been made more comfortable with the Enterprise and its crew, giving up that little piece of control. He likes to think that he’s a good influence, Leonard thinks otherwise. Especially when he caught the two of you in a very compromising position in an empty exam room. He said he wouldn’t ever be able to unsee it and hit the contraband whiskey hidden in one of his desk drawers.

He feels like he’s on another plane of existence with your hands on his hips and lips attached to his neck. Your hands grasp at his shirt, pushing it up and up and hands tucked beneath the fabric, trailing up and down his sides, scratching down lightly with your nails and making him shiver. You love that, he can tell. He can tell by the way you smile against his neck, how your breathing picks up a little and that you kiss harder, sucking and biting and he’s sure he’s never going to heaven with what goes through his mind and how desperately he fucking wants you.

He’d never expect this from you.

And fuck, when you pull away with a smirk, hands still caught beneath his shirt, right over his chest and push him back. He stumbles in surprise and his knees hit the back of the examination table.

You push him down on the bed with a finger to his sternum. The paper on the bed crackles beneath him when he lies down and he stares at you, eyes wide and expectant when you manage to pull yourself onto his lap.

He’s always been a bit dangerous, hell, he loved that but you, you’re something else right now. You’ll only pull yourself back in when this is done.

His lips burn when you drag your own over his and glide up across his cheek to the shell of his ear. His hands skim over your back and down to your thighs, trying to push the blue dress over your ass.

Over the whispers that you say in his ears, promising what exactly you will do to him and how you’ll do it, neither of you hear the whoosh of the door opening.

“God fucking dammit, Jim!”

**_vi._ **

He doesn’t think there is any better feeling than this, nothing could probably ever compare. Not the moment he was made captain, but that could be a very close second.

This has to be a sin because it sure as hell feels like one. Your lips move slowly over his neck, nipping at the skin there, all thoughts and cares thrown out the window as soon as you had pushed him down on the bed, hovering over him, bodies just barely touching.

Cheeks red and uneven breathing, a warmth that consumes him, it’s all welcomed if the cause of it is how you kiss his neck.

Every move is calculated. He knows it in the way you smirk against him, each touch of your hands on him moving confidently and gentle scrapes of your nails across his skin.

He brushes your hair back when you pull back to catch your breath. Jim’s never seen such a beautiful sight in his life. He wouldn’t trade this moment for the world and he tries his hardest to burn this into his memory. Your swollen lips and how your hair brushes against your shoulders, how the low lighting of the room reflects of your skin, making you glow, that a halo almost appears around your figure and he’s sure that you must be some kind of angel.

“I love you, Starlight.”

“I know you do.”


End file.
